Summary of Research about Denominational Structure in the North American Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church Surveys and Studies Completed in 1995 by the NAD Office of Information & Research By Monte Sahlin and Petr Cincala Institute of Church Ministry Andrews University March 2014
Chapter 1 The Needs of Local and Union Conference Staff Professionals and Their Opinions about Denominational Structure Focus group research was used to gather input from departmental directors employed in the local and union conferences of the NAD. An Adventist minister who was trained in focus group method by an outside commercial organization conducted three groups that involved a total of 26 departmental directors from across the NAD. All unions were represented because the focus groups were done at an off-site market research center around the time of the NAD Ministries Convention held in January 1995. It should be noted that the Education Department was not included in this study; all other departments were. Needs identified by these conference and union staff: 1. Clearer communication and more information, including greater opportunity for dialog between departmental staff at various levels; they feel largely left out of the loop of decision-making by administrators, even when the focus is clearly a departmental function. 2. Information about what is working and what is not working in the local church and in conference programs; they reported that there was almost no valid assessment data about the many different ministries and programs promoted by the denomination. Claims about methods that work generally had more to do with the background or favorite activities of spokespersons than actual data about how well they worked. 3. Increased funding; departmental directors said they had little or no finances with which to accomplish their assignments. Should a professional who is paid more than $75,000 a year in salary, benefits and travel expenses have only $500 as a budget for supplies, etc.? That was seen as a signal that they are simply glorified back-up preachers for local churches not real ministry directors/enablers. 4. Personal support such as a listening ear, networking; departmental directors said they were solo performers in their speciality and this did not encourage the modeling and teaching of teamwork in the local church where it is essential to growth. 5. Meaningful direction and clarification of mission; they felt that it was generally unclear how their various departments were intended to contribute to the larger mission of the denomination. 6. Events scheduled much further ahead than they were and detailed plans available much further ahead; the directors expressed the view that too many events were not given adequate advance planning so they were unable to make full use of costly projects. 7. An accreditation or evaluation system ''to determine whether we are
passing or failing. They stated that there was no tool to really measure how they were doing in their departmental role. 8. Greater ethnic diversity and relevance in resource materials and in denominational programs; they did not see adequate variety so that resource materials and programs could be used in the wide range of ethnic and community contexts where Adventist churches do their work. Why Have Departmental Directors? What do these directors think should be their role in the denomination? The majority saw their role as trainers training pastors and lay leaders in local churches. Nearly a majority said they should be tasked to provide support beyond training for pastors and the local churches in a sense similar to the support that is provided when people purchase computer software. About a third of the department directors interviewed mentioned motivation and inspiration, casting a vision for ministry. An equal number mentioned the coordination and management of conference/union programs. Few saw their role as that of a consultant, or a resource person who helps local leaders find resource materials, or a professional who staffs conference administrators by providing them with information, or an organizer to encourage networking among pastors and lay leaders in their type of ministry, or a promoter for goals set by administrators. Changes Recommended in Departmental Structure The participants in these group interviews were asked to suggest changes in the structure of departments in the NAD. The following suggestions were voice with much support: 1. Keep the same number of levels, but redefine what each level does; do not duplicate departments at three levels. Each department should exist at the division level and be matched at either the union or local conference level. Union conference departments should be empowered to work directly with local pastors and churches in those ministries assigned to the unions and not the local conferences. 2. Strengthen the division staff so that it can adequately provide for resourcing and coordination; union departmental staff would not be needed in many types of ministry, essentially only those where it was not realistic to expect each conference to have a person in place. 3. Down-size the union staffs so that they only handle administrative and technical roles, such as doing the payroll for all of the local conferences. Several of the participants suggested that the union conference level could be eliminated or at least some of the unions combined because ''we don't need as many as we have." A few participants were concerned that if the unions were eliminated there might be too much centralization of power. A larger number insisted, Get rid of either the local conferences or the union conferences; we don't need both levels."
4. There was disagreement about whether to reduce staffing in the local conferences or increase it. The larger number felt that "we are wearing too many hats" and especially in the area of family life ministries there was a great unmet need in the local churches, more specialists are needed. 5. Establish regions with conferences or mini-conferences within the unions so that administrators closer to the front line can provide greater supervision to local ministry. 6. Whatever re-structuring is done, "don't touch the Regional Conferences" and establish two African-American led union conferences. This later recommendation may have been realized since 1995 with the current reality that typically two or three of the nine union presidents are from ethnic minorities. There is a continuing need to represent fairly the major ethnic groups in the church structure and maximize cultural autonomy. How Can the Structure Be More Cost Effective? The department directors interviewed were asked how they would recommend making the denomination s structure less expensive to operate and more cost-effective in delivering services and programs. The groups suggested (1) get rid of non-productive workers; (2) consolidate the Christian education program and close many of the boarding academies with low enrollments; (3) reduce the amount of travel by conference and union administrators and the division staff; (4) make greater use of new technology; and (5) eliminate the duplication of departments and functions at all levels. A number of the participants suggested the largest savings could come from building a full staff of departmental specialists at the union level and eliminating those departments at the local conference level, including the unions taking over the treasury, payroll and accounting functions for the local conferences. The local conference staffs could be shrunk to a president, an education superintendent, and two or more vice presidents who supervised regions within the conference. Overall, there would be considerable savings in salaries across the NAD and much better quality of support for specialized ministry areas.
Chapter 2 The Needs of the Local Church and an Evaluation of the Denominational Delivery System Telephone interviews were conducted with a random sample of 826 local church leaders over a 10-day period in January of 1995. This included 409 pastors and 417 lay leaders. The survey team included personnel from the Center for Creative Ministry, the Adventist Information Ministry (AIM) and the Institute of Church Ministry, both located at Andrews University. All 58 local conferences were included in the samples. What Local Churches Need from the Denomination Of the list of 21 types of resource materials and support services tested in this survey, the vast majority of local leaders were unwilling to dispense with any of them. Two items were flagged for defunding by just eight or nine percent of respondents. Among the rest, only one to four percent of respondents indicated that the denomination should consider no longer spending money in that category. Some resource materials and services were highly valued. The majority of pastors were satisfied with the eight different versions of Revelation Seminar materials available at the time, the Sabbath School curriculum materials for all age levels and the materials and supplies for Pathfinder Clubs. Nearly half of pastors gave the same response to four other kinds of resources: job descriptions for local church offices, tracts and leaflets designed for outreach to non-adventists, training events of all kinds and 800-number resource hotlines for each of the departments. These are items that local church leaders depended on and did not want disturbed by any re-structuring. Pastors and lay leaders felt the same on these items. A third to nearly half of the local leaders identified ten areas that local churches need, but that the current materials and services available in 1995 were in need of significant improvement. These included (1) training events located in the local church, (2) youth ministry resources, (3) training in personal witnessing, (4) the Bible lessons used in outreach, (5) approaches to public evangelism, (6) health seminars, (7) stewardship materials and training, (8) resources for women s ministries, (9) small group materials and (10) availability of consultants to help local leaders. Since 1995 the NAD has made considerable investment toward the improvement of these materials and services. It may be true that if the same questions were asked today there would be a different view on this item. There were a few services/materials for which local leaders saw a need, but said they were not aware of or they did not know enough about to evaluate them. These included (1) training videos for local church officers, (2) how-to books for local church officers, and (3) curriculum resources for family life seminars. All of these were new concepts in 1995 and may be much more widely known today. The percentages of local leaders willing to dispense with any of these three types of resources were in single digits. Pastors and lay leaders had much the same opinion on this.
The Ministerial Department The department that most directly serves pastors is the Ministerial Association. Only a third of pastors (37 percent) indicated that their conference had a full-time ministerial secretary in 1995. Another third (34 percent) reported that their ministerial secretary also has other departments. Equal numbers indicated that the conference president (14 percent) or another conference officer (14 percent) also served as ministerial secretary. Are these percentages different today? Another analysis needs to be done to update this information, although there is no reason to believe that the results would be much different two decades later. There is anecdotal evidence that pastors feel some ministerial secretaries focus exclusively on the promotion and coordination of public evangelism. Only one in five respondents (19 percent) indicated in 1995 that the focus of their ministerial secretary was primarily on evangelism. A the majority (60 percent) told interviewers that the focus of their ministerial secretary was primarily on being "the pastor's pastor'' or a good balance of the two foci. Nonetheless there was a pronounced level of dissatisfaction among pastors with the overall functioning of the Ministerial Department in their conference. Only one in five (22 percent) evaluated it as "excellent." Nearly half (47 percent) rated it as needing improvement or "bad." One in three (30 percent) say it is "OK." Would a stronger staffing of the Ministerial Department at the union conference level better serve pastors than the current arrangement where most local conference ministerial secretaries have other departments or officers assignments? There was little interest in this option and strong support for transferring resources from the union level to the local conferences. A total of 73 percent of pastors preferred to have a full-time ministerial secretary in each local conference and do away with the union ministerial office. One in seven pastors (14 percent) felt there was a need for a ministerial secretary at both the local and union conference levels. Only seven percent preferred two or three full-time people ''with the right skills" in the union Ministerial Department and doing away with local conference ministerial secretaries and just three percent preferred a full-time ministerial secretary at the union level and no ministerial secretaries in the local conferences. Do We Need Departmental Directors At All? In general, how important are the services provided by the various departments to the local church? The largest number of both pastors and lay leaders interviewed (47 percent and 42 percent) indicated that the departments were "doing OK for the funds they get." Lay leaders were almost twice as likely as pastors to believe that departmental services "need to be better funded" (40 percent as compared to 24 percent), and pastors were twice as likely as lay leaders to state that departments ''take a much bigger share of the budget than they are worth" (23 percent compared to 9 percent). Overall there was a clear demand for the resource materials, information,
training and consultant services provided by the departments in support of local church ministries. The pastors were asked additional, more detailed questions about the departmental staffing in their local and union conference. The majority of pastors indicated that there were two to eight departmental staff in their local conference. The average for all respondents was 8.2 full-time equivalent positions. Only one in five pastors (21 percent) were of the opinion that this was ''too many," while a slightly larger number (26 percent) felt that their conference had "too few'' departmental staff. The majority (53 percent) were satisfied that the current staffing was about right. How many of the total departmental staff in each local conference were assigned specifically to help local churches and not in the education, publishing, trust services, treasury or legal offices? The majority of pastors across the NAD indicated one to five staff in this category. The average for all respondents was four FTE. Nearly half of the pastors (46 percent) indicated that was not the right balance in their opinion, although almost as many (44 percent) were of the opinion that it was the right balance. The difference was not statistically significant. There was significant evidence that pastors were not well informed about departmental staffing patterns. Some gave obviously wild guesses as to the number of staff in their local conference (for example, "99"). As many as one in five admitted that they did not know how many of the staff in their conference office were assigned to support local church ministries. The majority (60 percent) indicated that they did not know how many departmental staff were assigned to their union conference office, although surprisingly nearly half (48 percent) felt that it was about the right number. Only two in five (38 percent) were of the opinion that the union conference had ''too many" staff. What About the Resource Center Concept? Two trends in the NAD have been at odds with each other for three decades. Staff has been reduced at all levels while at the same time the various areas of ministry for which local churches seek support and resources have expanded. To fill the gap a number of resource centers were established to provide information, materials, training and consultants in specific, defined ministries. Three out of four local church lay leaders (74 percent) like this concept. Pastors are even more positive about resource centers. In the 1995 survey, 35 percent of the pastors favored replacing departmental staffs at the local conference level with national resource centers; 15 percent wanted to keep the traditional departments in the local conference; and 47 percent recommended doing both options. Only three percent said they had no opinion.
Chapter 3 Opinions of Local Church Leaders about Restructuring and Cost Reducctions Four options were tested in the survey of local church board members: A. Build up the staff of specialists in the local conferences and decrease staffing in the union conferences. Preferred by 62 percent of lay leaders, 75 percent of pastors; Second choice of 15 percent of lay leaders, 14 percent of pastors B. Provide a strong staff covering all departments and specialized ministries at the union conferences and reduce local conference staff. Preferred by 13 percent of lay leaders, 10 percent of pastors; Second choice of 36 percent of lay leaders, 31 percent of pastors C. Make sure there is a strong team of specialists at the division level and not increase staffing at either the local or union conference levels. Preferred by 16 percent of lay leaders, 12 percent of pastors; Second choice of 26 percent of lay leaders, 35 percent of pastors D. Do away with departmental staff in the Adventist Church and simply encourage our people to use acceptable non-adventist resource organizations like Youth Specialties, Fuller Institute or David C. Cook. Preferred by only three percent of both lay leaders and pastors; Second choice of three percent of lay leaders, 11 percent of pastors How Would Extra Funding be Used? If increased funds were available to pastors and church boards, how would they utilize those resources? The largest number (31 percent of pastors, 32 percent of lay leaders) said they would use additional funding for local outreach and evangelism. One in four pastors (25 percent) and 21 percent of lay leaders said they would use for church growth. One in five lay leaders (20 percent) and 13 percent of pastors would use it to expand or start youth ministry. Sixteen percent of lay leaders and 11 percent of pastors would use it to help fund Christian education. One in ten pastors would use it to hire a church secretary to help them, while only two percent of the lay leaders agreed to this. Very small numbers mentioned other possibilities.